Preface
Financial stability is a state of affairs where the financial services sector can channel
the savings of the population and provide a national payment service in an efficient, secure and
sustainable way over time. In the context of the implementation of consistent and stable macroeconomic policies, the
resilience of the financial sector to factors that operate as threats to the possibility of fulfilling
those functions in a lasting manner (due to bank runs, excessive leverage, inadequate
risk management policies, distortion of asset prices, among others) helps to define the
proximity to a configuration of financial stability.
The strong interrelationship between financial stability and sustained economic growth justifies that
the former constitutes a social good that the State must generate and protect. Thus, the promotion of financial stability
is one of the main functions of most Central Banks. To achieve this
, Central Banks must have a series of instruments, among which are:
clear rules regarding the entry and exit of institutions, adequate prudential regulatory framework, safety nets
, effective official supervision with appropriate legal and institutional support, and mechanisms that encourage
market discipline.
The Central Bank of the Argentine Republic, as established in its Organic Charter in Article 4, has the
mandate to “monitor the proper functioning of the financial market”. The BCRA maintains that its usual regulatory and supervisory powers
should be complemented by a transparent communication
strategy accessible to the general public in order to increase the effectiveness of the policies implemented.
With the above objective in mind, the Financial Stability Bulletin (BEF) has emerged, presenting a
general assessment of the evolution of financial stability conditions. In the BEF,
the various information channels available on the subject are merged, generating the BCRA’s
vision of the prospects for the financial system. In addition, between each semi-annual edition of the BEF, the BCRA
publishes the Banking Report monthly to keep the public updated on the latest
developments in the financial system.
Depending on how deep the reader wants to give it, BEF can be approached in two ways. The reading
of the Institutional Vision and the Risk Balance, together with the synthesis of each chapter, allows us
to capture the essence of the BEF. Naturally, the complete review of the BEF offers an in-depth evaluation of
the topics discussed, enriched by the development of special topics presented in the Sections.
The date of the next publication of the BEF, with a statistical closing date for the first half of 2005, will be 30
September 2005 via the Internet.
